the storm after the calm

what a prophetic title my last blog had. it has rained and rained and rained and rained here in the last week, so much so that the rivers have burst and houses are under water and little boats are rescuing people. yesterday we flew over the towns round the area to take photos of the flooding for the newspapers (the airstrip is still grounded but we got special dispensation from the aviation minister to do this). i'm not sure i can upload the photos for some reason, the computer crashes when i try, so you will have to use your imagination. a poor little group of sheep trapped on the highest ground they could find in the middle of their field - poor sheep, it was already round their ankles when we flew over, but i'm hoping they learnt to swim and are now safe; the market place in san ignacio under so much water it has moved its stalls to the top of town; rooftops and treetops which are normally 30 feet or so above the river poking out from dirty brown flood water; all the mennonites have lost their cornfields; the border between here and guatemala is closed, you can canoe from one part of the road to the other if you are desparate to get there; a puddle i cycled through was so deep it went up to my thighs (good exercise). i usually love the rain as it makes everything so cosy and otherworldly, but it is so relentless and actually dangerous now that i am changing my mind. the world is grey and cloudy and everyone talks about the rain all day. it reminds me of a short story i once read by gabriel garcia marquez about a family sitting watching the rain and their cow in a field just watching the rain forever and ever. sometimes it stops and after a while you realise there is something missing because it is raining in your head the whole time too.

so, i am supposed to be leaving on wednesday morning to get the bus from here to chetumal, the border town to mexico. this is to the east of san ignacio which hopefully will be passable, but as the rain has started again half an hour ago, who knows. there is a bridge in belmopan halfway to belize city which is already under 18 inches of water. from chetumal it is 24 hours on another bus to mexico city, so it's not a journey i'm particularly looking forward to in the first place. i have a supply of books - huckleberry fin and the adventures of tom sawyer amongst others. if needs be i could fashion these into a raft i suppose and float my way to mexico. buying my bus ticket this morning reminded me how infuriating things can be in countries like this - the bus lady had said 225 belize dollars for my trip 2 days ago, which is now magically actually 264 belize dollars - she wittered something about exchange rates, and the rain, and what can you do when it's the only bus ticket lady in town.... everyone is on the make here - if a bus goes everyday on the same journey shouldn't the price be the same everyday regardless of the peso dollar exchange rate?

another theme this week has been the incessant ants in robert's house. you leave out a miniscule crumb of bread, or yoghurt, and in the morning there are 10,000 incessant ants swarming around it. i don't understand how they don't learn that they will get swept away and thrown in the sink, surely they see this happen to their friend ants? they are tiny little ants, they don't bite, or cause any trouble other than their incessantness (incessance?), but they crawl on your arms in their funny tiny little way.

i got a belizean haircut the other day, inspired by looking at some old photos of me, and realising i prefer myself with short hair. i normally hate having haircuts as it's so boring and takes so long and you have to endure inane conversation (a bit like hanging out with me i guess), but this took around 10 minutes, she just hacked loads of hair off and then tidied it up a bit, no messing around. and it looks ok, and was only 25 dollars (around 6 pounds). so belize definitely has its positives too.

yesterday i drank a few cups of good old english tea which was a refreshing treat after all this time (nearly 3 months since i left now). the consequence was weird dreams and i couldn't sleep well, so have enforced a no cups of tea after 2pm rule today.

other activities in my sluggish stagnant week (i'm not great at just chilling out, it makes me feel like a sloth): watched black hawk down, very interesting and gruesome film about the US army's raid in mogadishu (somalia) in 1993 to get rid of the warlord president who was starving the whole country. this made me feel bad for being so scathing to the US army people i have met on my travels, and made me realise that although i am a conscientious objector to war, what they do is totally necessary in situations like that, and very brave.

all for now. over and out.